Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of human-computer interaction and in particular, to apparatus, systems, and methods for facilitating interaction with computers and computing systems in an intuitive manner.
Description of Related Art
Human interaction with modern computers and computing systems has often been limited by the use of non-intuitive input and output mechanisms that serve as a barrier to even greater adoption and use of computing technology. For example, young children and older adults are often uncomfortable using keyboards, pointing devices, and/or screens such as touchscreens. Further, parents keen to develop handeye coordination and improve handwriting in young children may prefer the use of traditional writing media to keyboards. To a limited extent modern tablet computers have helped with greater adoption of computing technology by simplifying operation through the use of multitouch screens and virtual keyboards. However, tablet computers have also not addressed the use of more intuitive writing media to facilitate user-interaction.
Many professionals often use paper or other writing media to sketch ideas, concepts or perform initial assessments, prior to a detailed or more formal elaboration of the ideas using computers. Typically, any computations or processing to aid concept development and/or initial assessments are performed separately using computers and these computer generated results may then be incorporated or put on paper in order to proceed with the assessment. For example, an engineer may use a separate tablet computer to verify calculations or perform a sanity check prior to more detailed modeling. A teacher may use a computer to aid with computations written on a classroom whiteboard. In all of the above situations, the use of a computer to aid with computation leads to a break in the thought process and interferes with creative exercise. Moreover, there is no easy way to convert, capture, preserve and recall the concepts developed using writing media transparently for later use in a computing environment.
Therefore, there is a need for systems, methods, and apparatus for facilitating interaction with computers and computing systems in an intuitive manner using writeable media.